A 92 -year -old Briton was this week convicted of murder and violation, a verdict who ended a filed case that remained resolved for 58 years.
Ryland Headley was considered guilty by the Crown Court of Bristol in England for the violation and murder of Louisa Dunne, who was 75 when Ryland Headley killed her.
Louisa was found dead at home in Easton in the suburbs of Bristol in June 1967. At the time, the police concluded that she had been violated and had died by strangulation and asphyxiation.
Local police launched a major investigation: they collected the Palmares impressions of 19,000 men, collected 1,300 statements and made more than 8,000 home visits, Avon and Somerset police said in a statement on Monday.
However, none of this took nowhere and the case was filed.
The skirt Louisa Dunne wore when she was found dead. (Avon and Somerset / PA Police)
Only when the police began to analyze the case in 2023 did the investigators get a full profile of the DNA of Louisa Dunne’s killer from the skirt she wore when she died – using technology that was not available at the time of the crime.
This DNA profile was then compared to samples collected from Ryland Headley after its detention for two violations in 1977, which led to his arrest in November 2024.
“For 58 years, this terrible crime was resolved and Ryland Headley, the man who now knows how to be responsible, avoided justice,” says prosecutor Charlotte Ream, in a statement from the United Kingdom Prosecutor (CPS).
According to CPS, Headley denied having committed the crimes.
Louisa Dunne was killed at home in 1967. (Avon and Somerset / PA Police)
20 test boxes analyzed
A partial impression of the hand found at the crime scene was also re -examined under the case analysis, informs the CPS. The impression of a part of the palm between the pulse and the pm’s base was discovered in a window on the rear of Louise Dunne’s house and was compared to Ryland Headley’s hand by four experts.
“Headley was never part of the original investigation, as it lived outside the area where the inquiries were home to home,” says inspector Dave Marçant, responsible for the investigation by Avon and Somerset police in a statement.
Dave Marchant also states that the “exhaustive and meticulous work” performed by the agents in the initial investigation prepared the way for the police to resolve the crime. According to the investigator, as part of the new investigation, 20 boxes of original material were reviewed by the police.
The CPS reports that all witnesses of the case, except for one, died in the nearly six decades that have taken place since the crime was committed, but that they were read in court old testimonials within the trial.
Ryland Headley will know the sentence this Tuesday. Charlotte Ream says that man “faces the perspective of spending the rest of his life in prison.”
CPS adds that Ryland Headley’s other infractions were also considered during the trial. Although previous convictions are not automatically admissible in the courts in England, the CPS stresses that the similarities between homicide and the violation of Louisa Dunne and the previous two convictions of Ryland Headley for violation were “too great to ignore.”
CPS adds that Ryland Headley was convicted after being said to have guilty of invading the homes of two elderly women in Ipswich and raped them. One of the women was 70 years old and the other 80. His reports of the attacks on the police were read in court.
The defendant was initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but it was reduced, following an appeal to a seven -year imprisonment.
Charlotte Ream says Monday’s verdict was a “demonstration of the commitment of CPS and our police partners to do justice to crime victims, regardless of how old – or decades – have passed.”
But groups of lawyers say that convictions for violation continues to be low in the UK and that the lawsuit is incredibly slow.
It says that 71,227 violations were registered by police in 2024. According to the UK charity, only 2.7% of these cases resulted in accusations by the end of 2024.
They show them that currently, 344 days are required for police to accuse the suspect, 30 days for CPS to validate the prosecution and 336 days for the court to complete the process.
